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mhuie · 06:45 PM

Just bought a PowerMac, and would like it to be my main WoW machine. The factory 9600 is terrible at the resolution I'm running at.

Currently I play on my P4 3.0ghz with a PCIE 6600GT card. My monitor is a 21" LCD @ 1600x1200. I'd like the similar performace on my DP 2.0. I've read a lot of reports where FPS (frames) are a lot lower even with the same cards on Mac's.

Will the 6600GT AGP cut it on the Mac side or will I have to go to a 6800GT, ultra or one of the high end ATI cards?

blizzard · Jul 20, 2005, 06:52 PM

Realistically, if performance on par with a PC is what you want, you'll need to at least one up the card you currently have in your PC, which, as my understanding is that the 6600s aren't made for Macs, is your only course of action anyways. Either the 6800 or one of the newer Radeons should do nicely. Be prepared to pay mucho $$$ though.

osxrules · Jul 21, 2005, 03:28 AM

I've noticed that Mac graphics tend to run slower for some reason than the PC equivalent so I would agree with getting a higher up card. Don't know if Apple need to release more optimised drivers or what but something is slowing it down. We keep getting new drivers on every OS update now but nothing goes faster. A lot of the problem is that games are written for Windows so they are probably coded with Intel or directX optimisations in mind.

I don't think the Mac will ever be taken seriously for gaming until this problem is sorted. We get games too late (I've had Lego Star Wars for my PS2 for a couple of months), they are too expensive (again Lego Star Wars was £24) and they run slower than than the PC equivalent.

The Intel Macs should change this because porting won't even be necessary and you might even be able to play the PC version.

Louis_SX · Jul 21, 2005, 02:31 PM

There IS no 6600 on the Mac IIRC...but similar performance (theoretically) would be available from a Radeon 9800Pro. However, if you're looking for the best Mac graphics, can't go wrong with the 6800 or x800 series

And the Mac has some weird stuff that prevents it from making PC performance levels in games...alot of it has to do with games being written originally for Direct3D in Windows and then a sloppy port to OpenGL for the Mac. Alot of the balance deals with OpenGL on the Mac isn't something an application can have exclusive control of (i.e., it's always shared with the GUI, cutting performance even more)

osxrules, you won't be playing hte PC version unless MS does some overhauls of the video engine in Virtual PC...Intel doesn't magically change the differences between OS X and Windows (if it did, we'd all be scarfing up the fastest PPC machines we can before the switch...I hate to think I'd have to go back to Windows.) There are changes that would need to happen underneath OS X optimizing OpenGL for single apps where the app demands it.

fleaplus · Jul 21, 2005, 03:29 PM

Get a 6800 if you can afford it (and atleast at the apple store here, they didn't mind me installing a few game demos on their 30" Cinema + G5 setup, since that machine always has the 6800 card, so you can get an excellent idea of what performance would be like)

On the flip side, my Mac mini performs suprisingly well compared to some of the older PC's I used to have. It actually gets better FPS in ut2004 and halo than a P4 northwood 1.6ghz, with a radeon 9000 card.

osxrules · Jul 22, 2005, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by Louis_SX

osxrules, you won't be playing hte PC version unless MS does some overhauls of the video engine in Virtual PC...Intel doesn't magically change the differences between OS X and Windows (if it did, we'd all be scarfing up the fastest PPC machines we can before the switch...I hate to think I'd have to go back to Windows.) There are changes that would need to happen underneath OS X optimizing OpenGL for single apps where the app demands it.

But if you can install Windows I mean. Or possibly use something like Darwine, which doesn't run properly yet because of the need to emulate the x86 CPU. I hope Apple don't stick to Mac edition video chips. I want to be able to walk into a local PC store and pick up the latest chip.

Originally Posted by fleaplus

On the flip side, my Mac mini performs suprisingly well compared to some of the older PC's I used to have. It actually gets better FPS in ut2004 and halo than a P4 northwood 1.6ghz, with a radeon 9000 card.

Yeah, I think it performs some things quite well but it could have been better for not much extra price. I can play Doom 3 on low settings (see other thread) but I can't play wakeboarding unleashed with reflections. UT2004 plays OK but Jedi Academy keeps stuttering when entering a room.

blizzard · Jul 22, 2005, 10:03 PM

You still won't be able to install aftermarket PC video cards in your Macintel...it's the drivers that will be the limiting factor, as always. There's nothing physically preventing you from throwing a 6600 into your Power Mac right now, other than the fact that it won't work since there's no software for it. Unless Apple writes drivers for every little video card out there (and we all know how likely THAT is) the limitations on hardware will be exactly the same.

Will driver writing be made any simpler by the switch, out of curiousity?

osxrules · Jul 23, 2005, 05:06 PM

Originally Posted by blizzard

You still won't be able to install aftermarket PC video cards in your Macintel...it's the drivers that will be the limiting factor, as always. There's nothing physically preventing you from throwing a 6600 into your Power Mac right now, other than the fact that it won't work since there's no software for it. Unless Apple writes drivers for every little video card out there (and we all know how likely THAT is) the limitations on hardware will be exactly the same.

Why don't NVidia write the drivers? I think they write the Windows ones.

Originally Posted by blizzard

Will driver writing be made any simpler by the switch, out of curiousity?

Probably not. Linux still has driver problems on X86. The main problem is just lazy developers who only want to support the most popular platform.

What they should do is design a portable driver framework so that devices and video cards work with all the major operating systems without too much work.

I think that's why Virtual PC doesn't have graphics card support. It's just too hard to write the drivers.